Council - Special Meeting

How you doing? Okay, we're about to get started. It is six o'clock and we are having our special city council meeting September the 8th at 6 p.m. and this is regarding the Fiscal year 20 7 but that. Madam clerk.

Mayor Douglas law then. Chippers and Bruce guy 10 year-old and him doctor Glenn spirit of your. How the person to Shamba Miller Anderson. Council person surely linear here. Councilperson Priscilla Davis-Panier. Mr. Chair, please let the record reflect that Councilperson Davis-Panier did provide notice that she will be tardy at today's meeting. In for City Manager William Wilkins. Kevin Coppin.

Here.

City Clerk Debra Hall is present. City Attorney Don Nguyen.

Here.

Mr. Chair, you have a quorum. You may proceed.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We will now have a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance led by Vice Chair Spiritus.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Chair, I don't see, maybe I don't have it, the agenda. I got it, I see it.

You have it?

Yeah, I got it.

Okay, are there any additional solutions or substitutions?

Chair?

Yes, Vice Chair.

Can we add on to the agenda for discussion purposes, owner's rep? CITY'S OWNERS REP?

FOR?

DISCUSSION.

IS THAT FOR THE UTILITY?

NO, FOR ALL OWNERS REP ENGINEERING, MOSTLY ENGINEERS, THE OWNERS REP ON OUR PROJECTS.

OKAY, IS KERRIN HERE? OR IS MR. BAILEY HERE? I SEE HIM SOMEWHERE. I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM. WE CAN ADD. IT'S A PROCUREMENT.

MY QUESTION IS ON THE PROCUREMENT.

OKAY. I WANTED TO JUST MAKE SURE IT'S APPROPRIATE. Madam Attorney, could we add that to the agenda? Madam Clerk?

It was for city's owner's rep? Yes.

And this is the regular agenda. This is not just for the budget. Okay. We can edit it.

So that would be under item 12? Item...

12 under discussion yes on this rep mr chair please let the record reflect that mayor douglas lawson is present okay are there any further addition deletion the substitution hearing none i entertain a motion to approve the agenda as amended so moved been moved by vice chair spiritus seconded by Councilwoman Lanier. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Hearing no discussion, Madam Clerk.

Councilperson Lanier? Yes. Chair Pro Tem, Dr. Spiridon?

Yes.

Chair Pro Zangaitan?

Yes.

Ms. Yuenan, please vote.

Yes. Are there any disclosures for the agenda this evening? Hearing none, we'll move to

MR. CHAIR, ITEM 9A, ORDINANCES ON FIRST READING. MR. CHAIR, WE HAVE ONE COMMENT CARD ON ITEM 9A, ORDINANCE NUMBER 4. . .

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. . . . . . . . . . . We did adopt the regular agenda.

Yes, we don't have anything on consent.

There are no consent items, are there?

No, sir. No consent items.

Yes.

So we are under Item 9A, Ordinance is Offer Free. My motion to adopt the agenda was as amended.

Yes, as amended. That's correct. Madam Clerk, do you have something to say?

Ordinance number 4324, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Riviera Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, fixing the adjusted tax valuation of real property located within the corporate limits of the city, levying a tax on all non-exempt real and personal property within the corporate limits of the City of Riviera Beach for the fiscal year 2026-2027, beginning on October 1st, 2026, and ending on September 30th, 2027. fixing the operating millage rate at 8.3500 mills there on for said year. that the operating millage rate of 8.3500 is 4.14% higher than the rollback rate of 8.0181, adopting the debt service millage rate for fiscal year 2026-2027 and the amount of 0.8000 for the general obligation bonds series 2026, providing a severability clause and providing for an effective date MR. CHAIR, WE HAVE ONE COMMENT CARD ON THIS ITEM. THE ACCEPTANCE OF CARDS IS CLOSED.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU, MADAM CLERK. I WOULD ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO ADOPT THIS ORDINANCE. NEW SPEAKER SO MOVED. NEW SPEAKER IT'S BEEN MOVED BY VICE CHAIR SPIRITUS. NEW SPEAKER SECOND. NEW SPEAKER SECONDED BY COUNCILWOMAN LENIER. STAFF, WOULD YOU GIVE US A BRIEF PRESENTATION, PLEASE?

NEW SPEAKER GOOD AFTERNOON, CHAIRPERSON AND COMMISSION. What we have before us is the budget development process, what we've gone through so far to get to this point. This millage rate, Mr. Randy Sherman will be coming forward to present to you how we got to this.

Thank you, ACM.

Walter, can we get the presentation up, please?

GOOD EVENING, RANDY SHERMAN, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER. THIS IS THE FIRST OF THREE ORDINANCES THAT WE HAVE TONIGHT. LET ME JUMP OVER THIS. ORDINANCE 4324, THIS IS THE ORDINANCE THAT ADOPTS YOUR MILLAGE RATE FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 2627. AS YOU REMEMBER BACK IN JULY, YOU ADOPTED A MAXIMUM MILLAGE RATE OF 8.35 MILLS. You also adopted a maximum millage rate for the debt service of one mill. This budget is based on the 8.35 mills for the operating, but we were able to get the debt service millage rate at 0.8 rather than 1.0, which gives us an aggregate millage rate of 9.15.

Okay, excuse me. Please let the record show that Councilwoman Miller-Anderson is now on the diet. Continue.

And I can take any questions that you may have.

Chair?

Yes, Vice Chair Sperdich.

So, Director Sherman, with the request of the debt service, bonding, do we have an opinion of council that says whether or not the loan, I guess, that we're going to be taking for the City Hall project is not considered a bond and doesn't count towards THE CITY'S BONDING RATE LIMIT?

NEW SPEAKER WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT FINANCING IS GOING TO BE YET, WHETHER IT WILL BE DEBT, WHETHER IT WOULD BE A LEASE, WHETHER IT WOULD BE FINANCED BY SOMEONE ELSE.

NEW SPEAKER EXCUSE ME, WE DID HAVE A PROPOSAL FROM THEM. AND IN THEIR PROPOSAL, IT SAID THAT THEY WERE GOING TO BE LEASING, AND THAT'S WHAT THE PREVIOUS CITY MANAGER TOLD ME, WE'RE GOING TO BE city hall so my question and i asked you this once before at a meeting is does this count towards the city's bonding limit and that's going to impact this as well so i would like to know something in writing an opinion from legal counsel telling us whether or not this counts towards our bonding limit or does not so if you have a capital and i can i can get something for you but and i'll i'll go there rather than try to

But it's debt. It's like our unfunded liability and our pensions. That's debt. It's anything that, you know, when we go to the rating agencies, when we put it in the financial statement, if it is a long-term payable over time, it's considered in that calculation.

So then it will be counted towards our bonding?

It will be at the end of the day, yes.

I finally got the answer that I've been looking for.

But if you still want a written opinion, I can certainly get that.

I think the city should have a written opinion from bond council on that anyway. Certainly, we can do that.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you on vice chair. Are you done? Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I'm just curious, how do we get to the 0.8 mils on the debt service millage? How is that determined?

So the interest rate that we get on those bonds was about four and a half percent, which was lower than what we were projecting when we did the calculation back in July. When we did in July, again, we left a little bit of cushion in there in case the interest rates went up, but that's based off of our assessed value divided really just by the principal and interest payments.

Are there any further questions?

Yes, Chair. I'm sorry for taking this up, but these are really important issues. Here we are now, you lowered the bonding limit, the percentage on the millage for the bond. Did you include the possibility that we might bond that $60 million in capital?

Yes, we did. um but keep in mind these bonds are outside of your debt limit because these are being paid by your problems i got it correct okay but yes we did take it yes you did consider that you did count it thank you continue mr chairman no questions or we can go to the public comment oh okay that's it that's it oh i love these type of presentations um public comment please

Ms. Jerry, Scott Lewis.

Hi, I'm Scott Lewis, 256 East 22nd Court. And I'll probably fumble on some small item here that I'm going to talk about, but I'd like you to continue to focus on the bigger picture. I am on your audit committee. I am president of LANA. AND I'VE BEEN TO QUITE A FEW OF YOUR MEETINGS, ESPECIALLY IN THE LAST MONTH ON THE BUDGET. A COUPLE OF THINGS THAT I'M NOT HEARING ABOUT. I KEEP HEARING ABOUT, OH, WE GOT TO MAKE TOUGH DECISIONS. BUT THEN I COME HERE AND TALK LAST MONTH ABOUT THE $8 MILLION-PLUS CHARGE BACK THAT YOU'RE DOING TO THE CITY, TO THE UTILITY DISTRICT from the city admin, which jumps at over 20, 25% admin for their whole budget, which is ridiculous. But nothing was done, as I understand it, nothing. The CRA, I came to that budget hearing, compared West Palm to Riviera, gave you real numbers. I was off by one number. I said 30 employees, they corrected me and said 29. And I know some of them are the ambassador. But when you look at an $80 million budget for a big city, West Palm, and you got 17 to 20 here, something's wrong when you have more employees full time than West Palm. Something is grossly wrong. Nothing got done. You know, I sat through, I couldn't believe I was sitting through y'all arguing, getting hot at each other about this lease thing. When I heard that you finally pushed through spending $900,000 for a lease that's going to generate a million dollars, what kind of business decision is that? No landlord in his right mind would do that kind of thing. And then maybe they're going to tear it down anyway because they're going to put something new here. What are you doing with our money? You know, I've been up here talking about the bonds market. and how much I object to how much you're spending and ramming through. And be sure everybody's clear, a bond is part of your property tax. I know it's different on there as debt service, but we pay it. It's not some other entity that's paying it. And that's all coming in next August, conveniently after the election. I mean, this is a bad picture, guys. You got your finance officer suing you. And then I hear you all keep talking, some of you talking about, well, we need more revenue, revenue. Come on, that's a code word for more taxes. Worse, people are choking on your taxes. Your water rates are horrible, going sky high. That's the future you're making. The five of you are making that future for your residents. You are the biggest gentrifying agent in this city. Thank you.

What are your comments?

Is Jared in the public comments?

Okay, is there any further discussion? Mr. Chair? Yes. Vice Chair Spurgeon.

So, Mr. Sherman, do you have the $115 million in bonding included in this budget?

That's that point, yes.

Okay, so the full $115 million. My concern to the City Council is not too different than the previous speaker. If this homestead law gets passed, we're going to lose $9 to $10 million. So do we have a plan B? What happens in November if this gets approved? What are we gonna do with our budget at that point? Do we have an exit ramp, a plan B where we can cut things at that point where we're over? I don't wanna do it at the last minute. We shouldn't have this pass and then all of a sudden we're running around like chickens without a head trying to figure out what we're gonna do with the budget. We should have that ready right now in case that gets approved. I know the county's doing it.

uh programs left and right uh they're getting ready they see they see the handwriting on the wall we better see the same uh we have to be prepared mr chair um let's let mr sherman have that question first so the answer is you'll see when we get into the operating budget where we've started to make some of those cuts uh again your largest issue that you have is personnel That's where the majority of your expenses are. And as you've seen in the other communities, that's where they're cutting. We've tried to leave as many positions vacant as we think we can survive with through 2027. Because again, the cuts don't come in until 2028. So again, we don't want to be hiring people, right, just to turn around and let them go, you know, shortly thereafter. So we've tried to keep the personnel items to the lowest level that I think you probably have seen in years. But that's really where you start to target. You have to start going back, you know, and almost going back to where we were in 2011, 2012, 20, consolidate fewer departments, you know, and really, you know, go back to that model. it really rolls you back to about 2021, 2022. So it doesn't really affect, oops, sorry. It doesn't really back that many years. And during that time, we've added about 40 positions. So that's really where you got to start, not necessarily the same 40, but you got to start talking about rolling those back.

Because there's certain things you can't change.

You can't change insurance. You can't change health insurance. You can't change. You've got to pay your utility bill. I mean, everything, you know, as if you're a homeowner type situation. So it's going to have to come back out of the personnel and programs.

So you're looking at the 40 employees and going back to 2022, but I don't know if that's going to do it because we have contractual obligations. We gave substantial raises from 2022 to now. So 40 may not do it.

May not be sufficient. You're absolutely correct. that's why again as we get to the other up we'll get into the operating budget you'll see some of the the prep work that's gone in to prepare in case it passes okay thank you mayor lawson thank you uh that was to my point my question um current fte vacancies how many do we currently have um in the city staff i have about four million dollars worth of vacancies right now um the exact count i i don't recall um but then we have to start looking at it you're not going to touch probably police and fire you're not going to touch development services and you know and all their buildings you don't want to weaken that and then like the utility budget you're not going to touch those people so when you start to whittle that down it's about probably a million eight two million dollars that really is i'll call it discretionary type positions

Okay. And thank you for that. But if you could send that list out to us, because I understand that your thoughts and opinion, but I think the board should make the decision on what employees should be cut and should not be cut. Police and fire. What does the ballot initiative say when it comes to police and fire, when it comes to, if this passes, can that budget be cut? Can they be limited? Is this going to be the fiscal year? That's going to be the benchmark based upon that ballot initiative. Because to Dr. Spiritus's point, we need to make those cuts, but also at the same time, this doesn't take effect till 2028. So being prepared as a board, we need to see what those vacancies look like. What departments do we want to start to limit and prepare for? And then where do we want to be? Because I understand you gave that outline that we have 4 million in current vacancies, but I think the board should make that determination. So if we can get that emailed out to us currently with the current staff, so we can take a look at the current vacancies. So the second question was, If this ballot initiative does pass, and I know that we mentioned about $8 million, $9 million in revenue that we'll be losing, what other arenas besides staffing are you seeing other agencies making cuts in? Programs.

I mean, you'd have to go back and start cutting out certain programs.

And again, they're not necessarily cutting that yet. I think they're just kind of preparing their menu of options. But as you start to go through it and you start to look at, okay, what does the county offer? What is the county gonna continue to offer? Where do we have duplication? Where is it gonna be some of that overlap? And I think, again, they're starting to look at, again, all of those items that are more quality of life type issues so you like your parks programs and libraries and you know and all those types of areas versus again public safety and good and so public works so the second point board as we've mentioned previously intergovernmental affairs is a position they added back into the budget

But we as a board have to identify because staff took that out. But we have to make sure that they understand, to Mr. Sherman's point, what cross agencies can we work with at the county and state level to help bring additional programming and funds to the table? And that's exactly what intergovernmental affairs and economic development does. So I don't want just staff to make the determination of cutting positions when we understand what's the need of the community and where financially we can be. So that position we added back in, but that's going to be vital to bringing in more revenue and resources and dollars for the community. So if we can, city manager or assistant city manager, work on that position. If we can check with HR, I know that they said that that position would be reposted. Has it been reposted as of yet?

I believe the 21st of this month.

Perfect. It will be or it was. It will be reposted? It will be, yes, sir. And that's going to be Intergovernmental Affairs, Economic Development.

And also the grant position.

Got it. So I think that that position will help, to Mr. Sherman's point, with bringing in some more revenue from the county, if we can kind of find those cross-programmings from non-profits, for-profits, and government agencies, and that's where they can go out and get those dollars for us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Vice Chair Spurdy.

Okay, so two more questions. I'm sorry, I just want to GET THIS OUT BECAUSE WE'RE VOTING AND IT'S OVER AFTER WE VOTE. SAND, YOU HAVE $1 MILLION BUDGETED AS PER THE COUNTY CONTRACT FOR SAND FOR SINGER ISLAND THIS YEAR. AND WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO THAT AGAIN NEXT YEAR AS PER OUR AGREEMENT. YOU HAVE THAT IN THE BUDGET?

IT IS IN THE BUDGET, YES.

YOU KNOW THAT WE'RE PROBABLY GOING TO HAVE TO, UNLESS THE CITY MANAGER IS SUCCESSFUL, AND I KNOW I'VE BEEN LOBBYING THE COUNTY COMMISSION, HOPEFULLY THEY'LL COME TO THE PLATE AND PAY THEIR SHARE AND HONOR THEIR CONTRACT WITH US, AND I KNOW THERE'S EXIT RAMS THAT THEY COULD USE TO GET OUT OF THE CONTRACT, YOU KNOW, WHICH THEY'VE DONE ALREADY, AND HOPEFULLY THEY WILL COME BACK TO THE TABLE. THEY SAID THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO COME BACK TO THE TABLE IN THE FUTURE. HOPEFULLY THIS IS THE FUTURE. BUT WE HAVE TO BE PREPARED, HOPEFULLY UNDER THE DISASTER FUND, WE CAN GET THE ADDITIONAL $3 MILLION WE'LL NEED TO DO THIS. I KNOW THAT WE ALREADY HAD THE PERMIT APPROVED FROM THE STATE, SO EFFECTIVE NOVEMBER 1ST WE CAN BRING SAND ONTO SINGER ISLAND, AND YOU KNOW THAT THAT IS AN EMERGENCY SITUATION. WE ALMOST LOST BUILDINGS LAST YEAR. IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN THIS YEAR WHEN THE WINTER TIDES COME BACK. SO WE HAVE TO BE VERY COGNIZANT OF THAT. MY SECOND QUESTION IS DEFICIT. THIS YEAR AT ONE POINT WE WERE CLOSE TO $12 MILLION IN THE DEFICIT. AND YOU SAID BY THE END OF THE YEAR YOU THINK THAT WE COULD BE EVEN. you're going to be making, I guess, major cuts to the budget or whatever. Where do we stand right now? Because we're getting close to the end of the fiscal year.

So when I talked about the $12 million, and that was back in May, that was the difference between what we were projecting for our revenues for 2027 and what the departments had asked for. So the departments had asked for more than we were projecting. That was that $12 million. That is now a balanced budget. That's going back, making the cuts, you know, chipping around, taking care of personnel, updating the revenue projections along the way. But that's the normal budget process. Everybody gives you their wishlist. You know, we try to be conservative with the revenue projections. And then as the manager is developing a tentative budget to present to the council, those two items of you know have to come together and give you a balanced budget so that 12 million dollars wasn't operating deficit the city's operational fund city's general fund for 2026 we expect to have a million and a half two million dollar surplus so we'll have a fund balance at the end of the year uh so

not sure why we even had that discussion then at the briefing when you said there was a 12 million dollar deficit if you would have explained it the way you just explained it now it would make more sense so you were talking about future budget the next year's budget and what the staff was asking not about the existing situation correct so existing we're we're right now on a balanced budget and we're headed to have a surplus of about a fund balance of about We'll have a bigger fund balance right from the previous years. What will our actual fund balance be?

Right now our total fund balance is $43 million.

How much, 42?

Forty-three million.

Forty-three million.

Which we'll be adding again another one, $2 million.

So these aren't monies that you've already put into the next year's budget, are they? That fund balance or is that monies that we can't?

No, we don't appropriate the fund balance. The fund balance really isn't cash.

So we can't, well. It depends how you look at it. But we do have the ability to rebudget that fund balance money for other items, correct?

The cash component of that.

Right. And do we know what the cash component of that is?

Well, we in the fiscal year, we probably will have about $15 million of cash, maybe a little bit more than that. But then comes October 1st when all the bills come due again. So October 1st, you're paying all your pension costs. We have in the past ended October because we don't see any tax revenues until November. We've ended October with $2 or $3 million in the bank. I mean, that's how tight the month of October is for us.

So then the fund balance will only be really $3 million. The rest of it is on paper based on cash and cash income coming in. When do you think that that will go? Well, it won't go up. It'll stay the same. That cash will stay the same at the end of the year.

It'll be about the same, yeah.

So we'll have about $3 million is what you're projecting. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Sherman, every year the state requires us to have a balanced budget. Is that correct? Correct. So we cannot carry a deficit into the next fiscal year. That's correct, right? Right, yeah. So every year, sometimes we think that somehow something that we may, and I'm not saying anybody in here, has a major deficit and it's going to be carried into the next year and we're going to be solid with that deficit The law doesn't allow us to do that. Go ahead.

You want to say something? No. Again, you're right. Every year is different. Where we typically get our surpluses from every year is, as the mayor pointed out, is our vacancies. Budget for a position, it's vacant during the year.

Sometimes that then costs you more in overtime, because you have to.

So not every department ends up the same way every year, depending on what the issue is. Public Works is getting hit with fuel prices this year. But again, it will balance out to that million and a half, two million.

The point is we cannot carry a deficit. We do not carry a deficit. My next question is, I know each department was required to cut so much out of their budget, whether the percentage or whether the fixed amount, how did that work this year?

The city manager tried to cap them at a 2% growth. So depending on what their 26 budget was, they were intended to try to stay with only going 2% higher. Some came in lower, some still were a little bit over the 2%. That was the target.

Okay. Are there any further questions? Yes.

So then you didn't ask the department heads to cut anything from this year's budget?

No. Well, again, depending on what they originally asked for, they then tried to get down to that 2% number. So it wasn't that they had to cut and go lower than 2026.

I'm talking about this current fiscal year did we ask the employees to cut their budgets from this fiscal year no no let's go here now so it's only the future so instead of asking for a five percent increase you told them to stick to a two percent increase correct okay you think that would be enough if this new law gets passed

It starts to slow down, right? Instead of going up 5, 6, 7%, it's starting to put the brakes on things.

Okay, so then when the department heads do this, we save jobs. I'm sorry? If the departments do this correctly, we should be able to save some positions in the city rather than having to eliminate those positions. What did you figure that in with the 40 already? It'll save you from having to lay off individuals. So it will save us. Okay. So that's why it's important. And I just want to go for the record. I want to agree with Mayor Lawson. There are certain positions that actually make us money. We don't lose money. We make money from them, like in the governmental affairs department. I think it should be a department. I think it should be more than one person. And then your economic development director, the same thing. They're going to bring money into the city. They're going to bring taxes, revenues, jobs, et cetera. So I think it's important that we keep, that's why it is important, as the mayor said, that the board take a major role in deciding what positions would be eliminated. If the law gets passed and we have to do it, the city council should be taking a major role in making those decisions. Thank you.

And let me just say, I know at least one of those positions has already been ever fired, maybe two. I know the economic development position has been advertised. There was an issue that surfaced today that came to my attention about that position. Someone was applying for it. Okay, Mr. Sherman, are there any further questions? Seeing none, Madam Clerk.

Councilperson Lanier. Yes. Councilperson Miller-Anderson. Yes. Chairperson Dr. Spiritus.

Yes.

Chairperson Guyton.

Yes.

That's a unanimous vote.

And Mr. Sherman, there is going to be a presentation on the operational budget where we can have questions about each department,

The presentation is a little higher level than that, but you can ask any questions on the department you'd like. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, coming up.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Next item.

Mr. Chair, on item 9B, ordinance number 4325, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Riviera Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida, making appropriations and establishing a budget for the fiscal year 2026-2027, beginning on October 1st, 2026, and ending on September 30th, 2027, providing severability clause and providing for an effective date. Mr. Chair, there are no comment cards for this item. The acceptance of cards is closed.

So. And what did we get the public comment from the last time we did. OK, it's been moved by vice chair spirit. Seconded by Councilwoman Lanier. On the motion on discussion of the motion staff.

OKAY. SO THE BUDGET THAT YOU'RE ACTUALLY ADOPTING WHEN YOU GO THROUGH THIS PROCESS IS YOU'RE ADOPTING THE BUDGET FOR EVERYTHING IN ONE MOTION. THESE ARE THE LISTS OF THE ENTIRE NUMBER OF BUDGETS THAT YOU ACTUALLY WILL BE MOVING FROM THE PUBLIC HEARING TO THE SECOND READING ON THE 22ND OF SEPTEMBER. AGAIN, IT STARTS WITH THE GENERAL FUND AND YOU CAN SEE THE GENERAL FUND IS UP ABOUT $5.5 MILLION. The debt service fund is up just over $2 million. The third line up there is the debt service for the general obligation bonds that the voters did approve and you approved back in July. And then we have the dollars that go into the major disaster fund. As I mentioned last time, it's about $8 million in that fund right now. THE MIDDLE SECTION ARE ALL OF OUR ENTERPRISE FUNDS, SO THE FIRST TWO LINES OF THE UTILITY DISTRICT, WHICH YOU APPROVED AT THE DISTRICT BOARD MEETING BACK IN AUGUST. AND THEN WE HAVE THE MARINA, SOLIDWAYS, STORMWATER AND PARKING, AND AS WE PRESENTED THOSE BUDGETS, VERY LITTLE CHANGE IN THOSE BUDGETS, VERY LITTLE CHANGE IN THE REVENUE PROJECTIONS FOR EACH ONE OF THOSE. And then we have the internal service funds. Those are all the internal work that we do for the city that has IT, your insurance fund and fleet services. So total budgets for 2026 that we've been operating on was $214.5 million. And then we are approving $248.9 million. million budget for FY2027. Mr.

Chair?

Mayor Lawson.

I see that our debt service fund is up to $11 million. Are we moving forward with submitting any applications to diversify our funding and some of the capital projects that we have, like a water plant? I know we talked briefly about WIFIA. We talked about some of the bonds. We talked about some other things. First question, where are we with the WIFIA? Have we submitted an application for that yet?

So the WIFIA is the absolute highest interest rate that we have the option at this point. It's probably, I didn't check it today, but last Friday was about 5.27%, which is the highest interest rate out there. We're still moving forward with the SRF. So far, they've approved $35 million. We're waiting for those loan agreements to come forward.

Sorry, before we go forward, you said that the WIFIA is the highest interest?

It still remains the highest interest rate option for us.

So that means we have not submitted an application?

We had the letter of intent that was submitted that actually expired in March. And what we talked about at that point was we could always resubmit another letter of intent. We could resubmit a letter of intent for other projects rather than the treatment plan. But if WFIA ever becomes an interest rate option to us, a lower cost option, we do have on the utility side the variable rate debt that we had talked about. So we could take out the variable rate debt with any other funding source. And that's really the plan for the SRF. Take out the, you know, when SRF comes in, it's presumed that that will be the lower, the lowest interest rate we can obtain. And then that would then take out either fixed rate or the variable rate that we

I don't recall the board meeting or the decision of the board to make those decisions in regards to going with the SRF versus the WIFIA because of the, at the time, highest rate.

So we brought that to you in June. So it would have been the utility district board at the June 17th meeting. That was when we also brought in the $242 million for the SRF. Okay. And PFM was here and made their presentation.

So that discussion was to not proceed with WIPIA?

At that point, again, WIPIA wasn't an option because, again, the interest rates are so much higher. And again, when the letter of intent, in essence, expired, there wasn't any reapplication to that process.

Understood.

And that's working with CDM and, you know, again, trying to get those rates.

So in my discussions with some legislators, EPA, and travelers to Tallahassee and Washington, understanding that the interest rate may have been higher, but the point of diversifying our financing options gave us the vehicles necessary to not max out our bonding capacities, to have other forgivable loans and grants and programming that we can actually go after. and also with the WIFIA application that gave us the other leverage to make sure that we could give some of that options forgivable. I remember Dr. Spiritus went up to Washington with the former mayor one time, and that's when the first conversation with WIFIA was happening. When I also went up there with, I believe Ms. Jacobs went to Tallahassee with me, we had some conversations. So I want to look at every option and every vehicle, and I want the board to make and give clear direction to staff as to what's the best options, because it seems like what was brought back to us, some of the finance option was explained by the consultant, explained by your department, but I'm not sure if the board made the decision to proceed or not proceed with the WIFI application, because I've gotten calls from them asking, what are we doing? Still kind of in limbo with the letter of intent and some of the direction that we were looking at. And we've heard narratives about our bonding capacity being maxed. So I want to have every vehicle possible to look at every financing option so that the board can make that decision.

And again, just to explain is talking to Councilman Spears or WIFIA, SIRF, regular bank loan, whatever you want. it's still part of your debt capacity. Now, again, that is not that debt service up there, okay? Because that's down in the utility budget. So that is just your general fund So that's your fire stations 86 and 88, you know, some projects.

Thank you for that clarity. I understand that, but I'm thankful for the hopefully the public and maybe my colleagues. But what I'm trying to explain is we need to alleviate some of the pressure on our bonding capacity. These other vehicles and these other funding options alleviate those pressures to help with offsetting some of the costs to the residents. Even though the interest may be higher, these are other vehicles that we can look at. And we want to make sure we look at every funding vehicle versus just the bonding capacity. Because we've presented the lease back. We've presented the WIFI. We've presented the FRS. We have to find every creative means of funding this water plant and every bit of infrastructure to make sure the residents have the lowest costs. And that's kind of to the board. We need to see every option. Everything needs to be cross-checked and we need to identify what are the best benefits for the public as opposed to just similar to the employees being selected as to what needs to be selected and what doesn't. We have the ear of the board and we want all the information, not just what's presented sometimes. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Thank you, Mayor. Vice Chair Vierdijk.

So thank you, Mayor, for bringing that up and letting the public know where we were and where we are right now. As you know, Director Sherman, CDM has already put in an application for resiliency funds as well. And there are other funding sources out there that we're going for at this time. But I have been meeting with our congressional representatives on trying to get the WIPIA interest rate down. And I think I'm hoping that we will be successful in doing so. And that will make obviously the WIFIA program much more competitive. What are our interest rates right now?

So when we were in front of you in June, and I know interest rates have gone up, when we were in front of you in June, we were about 3.8 blended rate with the SRF, the variable rate and the fixed rate.

right now we're probably closer to four and a half where we were with the 115 million so it's four and a half compared to 5.2 is it with you with 5.2 okay so the what what's the fixed rate though if you don't count srf because srf gives us not only money i think the public should know that the usrf they're probably going to get a 20 grant out of that as well as a loan interest loan uh but so what's the fixed rate on the on the uh the market rate that you went out in the general market?

Well, again, for the fixed rate, we think we will be right around that 4.5%.

About 4.5%. Okay. So we're basically looking for less than 2%. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Sherman and ACM, there were some items that we requested to be included in the budget. You all were going to go back and do some adjustments. And it was indicated that when we add somewhere, we had to take from somewhere because we have to have a balanced budget. We had that discussion. I don't know if you have that list, but I have a couple of items here that I remember that we asked for staff to go back and adjust. One of them was the COLA. Has that been adjusted?

If you want, I'm going to go through the slides first because it is in there.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then if I miss something, you'll let me know. Okay. Thank you.

All right.

Okay. So again, focusing more on the general fund here. Again, the middle column is 26. So you can see we're at $120 million. Again, these are the same numbers that were on the prior slide. And this year we're at 126.1 million. Again, this is the revenue slide. So the property taxes are at the top. But again, keep in mind, some of those taxes go to the CRA, some go into the major disaster fund. And it's only about $3.5 million increase in the property taxes. I will point out the intergovernmental, which is the fourth line down. That's our money that we get from the state. All three of those revenues went down this year. This is the second year in a row that things like the revenue sharing, the sales tax and the communication tax are all dropping. But you can see that again, there's very little movement in most of those lines. But again, we did squeeze out about five and a half million dollars of new revenue.

I'm sorry, how much are we getting from sales tax? I'm sorry? Sales tax.

sales tax is in the intergovernmental line and that that number from the state actually went down not a lot i mean the three revenues that went down about eighty thousand dollars so it's about six million plus um vice chair uh thank you for bringing that up chair how what's the formula that the state uses in in splitting up the uh sales taxes

Is it based on what we produce, or is it just a general formula based on population?

There's a general formula, but I would have to go back to the book and get that, but I can get you that information.

I had a situation in New York, quite frankly, which was a general formula. It made no difference whether we created $100 million, $300 million in sales taxes. It made no difference. We got it all based on a formula.

All based on the formula.

Okay, thank you.

I'm your chair. Good point. Mayor Lawson.

Thank you. Where is the parking revenue in regards to revenue?

Parking revenue is in a different fund. So it's like the marine, it's in a different fund.

Is it going to be in your presentation here that's coming up?

And again, if I go back here, it's in the enterprise, the last one in the enterprise fund, that $1.6 million.

at the bottom of the enterprise fund parking fund.

So this slide is the general fund revenue, just the first line. This is the only fund we're looking at which is itemized. Correct. On the slide we're on. Thank you, sir.

On the expense side, again, you'll see very little movement in the departments, individual departments. The bigger movement comes down when you get to police and fire. Those are the two largest changes. Police only went up about $1 million. Fire went up about $2.2 million. But again, very little change. Again, everybody was targeted with trying to stay within that 2%. General admin, as we've mentioned on the prior two screens ago, that's where that debt service number is. That's why you see a jump in general admin. But again, it all depends on, because personnel is such a heavy percentage of our budget, it all depends on where certain departments are with their personnel ARE THEY NEWER EMPLOYEES, OLD EMPLOYEES, DO THEY HAVE VACANCIES OR NOT. SO SOME OF THAT IS WHERE YOU SEE SOME OF THOSE CHANGES. BUT AGAIN, IT'S 126,151,165 WHICH GIVES YOU YOUR BALANCED BUDGET.

NEW SPEAKER, IF WE CAN GO BACK TO THE BOND, $28 MILLION. SO THAT IS EVERYTHING EXCEPT EXCLUDING THE UTILITY DISTRICT.

No, this $28 million is, it includes the $10 million that goes to the CRA, includes the $11 million going into bonds, includes the $4 million going into capital. So there's a lot of those big transfers. The million dollars for sand is in that number.

Okay. So the 11, I just want to, I'm trying to figure out what we're paying for the bonds per year, you know, for what we, and you included the 115 million in there. And I guess the, The extra $20 million, $25 million we put into the police department and we did some road work. That's all in this number that we're paying out right now.

That's that second line, that service fund, that $11,188,000. That's the $11,188,000.

Correct. Thank you.

AND I KNOW I'VE SAID IT A COUPLE OF TIMES ABOUT PERSONNEL COSTS. 126 MILLION DOLLARS, THAT THIRD COLUMN OF NUMBERS UP THERE, THAT'S YOUR 27 BUDGET. 67 MILLION OF IT IS PERSONNEL COSTS. AND THEN AGAIN, YOU SEE LIKE THE CRA IS $10 MILLION. AND THEN THE LAST LINE THERE, TRANSFER TO OTHER FUNDS ARE THOSE ITEMS THAT I JUST MENTIONED. AGAIN, THE $4 MILLION FOR CAPITAL, THE DEBT SERVICE FUND. AND THE MAJOR DISASTER FUND. BUT AGAIN, WHEN WE TALK ABOUT WHERE COULD WE POSSIBLY CUT, THAT'S WHY YOU HAVE TO START WITH PERSONNEL. WHETHER IT'S A WHOLE PROGRAM OR IT'S VACANCIES, THAT'S WHERE YOU'RE GOING TO END UP HAVING TO START. AGAIN, SHOWED YOU THIS SLIDE WHEN WE CAME WITH THE MANAGER'S TENANTED BUDGET BACK IN AUGUST. WE TRIED TO MAKE SURE THAT WE WEREN'T LOSING ANY REAL SERVICE LEVELS. WE TRIED TO MAKE SURE WE WERE BALANCING THE OPERATING BUDGET WITH THE CAPITAL BUDGET. THE COMPETITIVE SALARIES, SO AGAIN, YOU KNOW, WE TRIED TO MAKE SURE THAT WE WEREN'T LOSING ANY GROUND IN THAT AREA. GOT TO MAKE SURE WE MAINTAINED OUR LONG-TERM FINANCIAL STABILITY. AND AGAIN, AS WE MENTIONED EARLIER, KEEPING THAT PROPERTY TAX REFORM IN THE BACK OF OUR MIND. AGAIN, THE MAJOR ITEMS THAT WERE A HIT TO US, WE DID PUT IN THE DEBT SERVICE FOR THE $60 MILLION. AND I WILL TELL YOU THIS YEAR IT'S ONLY $2 MILLION BECAUSE WE ONLY WOULD HAVE ONE INTEREST PAYMENT THIS YEAR. OUR TRANSFER IN THE SAME $4 MILLION. INTO THE CAPITAL, GET THE $10 MILLION FOR THE CRA, THE $1.1 MILLION GOING INTO THE MAJOR DISASTER FUND. WE ALWAYS MAKE SURE THAT WE FUND ALL OF OUR CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS WITH THE LABOR UNIONS. THAT'S IN THERE. CHAIR GUYTON, YOU MENTIONED THE 6%. THE 6% IS IN THERE. YOUR REQUEST I DO WANT TO POINT OUT THAT THAT PBA CONTRACT THAT WAS APPROVED BACK IN APRIL THAT WAS A 1.9 MILLION DOLLAR INCREASE TO THE POLICE BUDGET AND AS I POINTED OUT EARLIER THEIR BUDGET ONLY WENT UP A MILLION DOLLARS AND THE YOU KNOW POLICE WAS WILLING TO GIVE UP SOME POSITIONS TO FUND THAT 1.9 MILLION DOLLARS AND THEN AGAIN I BELIEVE I MENTIONED BACK IN AUGUST THOSE PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS which again are all market driven, it's based on your salaries, went up 2.6, almost $2.7 million. As far as cutting, we did, you know, you'll see some personnel changes, but, you know, we did snip around the edges a lot. Professional services was reduced almost $500,000. Special events was reduced 300,000. Our contingency went down 300,000. WE HIT TRAVEL, PROMOTIONAL, COMMUNITY GRANTS, AND THE EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANCE. NOW WHAT I'LL SAY ABOUT THOSE LAST TWO COMMUNITY GRANTS, WE BUDGETED 100,000 THIS YEAR. WE ONLY AWARDED $40,000 WORTH OF GRANTS. SO WE WILL CARRY THAT 60,000 OVER TO NEXT YEAR. AND THEN ON THE EDUCATIONAL, AGAIN, WE'LL PUT ZERO THERE. By the end of the year, I think we will have about $250,000 still remaining in that account. So we're still carrying money over from two years ago, the $200,000 this year that effectively hasn't been spent. So again, that's why those two are zero up there.

Okay. They're zero because of what now? I understand that we're going to carry some funds over, but why don't we reflect what we project it to be. That's just a question.

Well, we don't have to reappropriate those dollars. Those dollars will just carry over and be carried into the next year. So community grants will have $60,000 and we only spent 40 this year. And then on the educational assistance, we will have at the end of the year, about $250,000. So it's less than we were actually budgeting in the first year. So again, as we go through those dollars, then when you come into 27, we can decide how we want to move forward with those.

Mr.

Chair. Mayor Lawson. That was my point. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The community grants program, we've decreased it, but we have funds available to move forward based upon what we actually applied for. The thing with that, I need staff to make sure that we're marketing it. And this is for Walter Communications advertising and putting it out like this education grant. We had a speaker come last week that discussed we need to advertise, make sure we bet it, put it out properly, give multiple organizations an opportunity, because what we heard for years is that the community benefits package that we had from previous vendors, we were not supporting nonprofits. Education, we saw the increase with the dollars we're putting into education over the last few years with just all of our grades, school level grades going up by a grade level. Most recently, JFK going up for the first time ever to a B. that's based upon these funds right here so board i want to make sure that we keep these funds in our budget annually and look to provide these opportunities because we're helping with the education and the non-profits in our community and identify the exact amount that we're spending annually so take an average of what we've done over the last two years including this year so we know what we need to budget annually every year because this doesn't properly reflect what we're putting back into the community and the conversations that need to be had with the um support of marketing, nonprofits, and education programs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, one of the questions that I often get is why doesn't the city have, and we used to create special programs last time I was here. We had a a roofing program for senior citizens that we had gotten some money from somewhere and we allocated it for doing roofs for senior citizens. But the question I get is why don't we have a home improvement option on the city side like the CRA side has? And I know it's on the limit, but my question is, and it may be a question for Mr. Sherman, could we use some of the home, I mean, some of the MEEHOP funds that will be coming in and delegate some of those funds for home improvements for those who meet income levels or senior citizens, those who we feel need some help?

As you said, that would be a good question for Mr. Sermons.

I'm not as familiar with that MEEHOP ordinance as I'm sure he is.

okay i'll address that later i don't think he's here well mr mr chair if i if i can comment on that we created a program we did that we did the renaissance and the reclaim cra was supposed to manage it here the funds in the mehop were used in other areas so we created a whole housing division so we need to allocate money and budget for housing department on the city side to help residents outside of the cra we did that in previous years but it wasn't followed by staff So this year we need to allocate a dollar amount, make sure the programs implemented across the city and make sure those funds are properly used with the renaissance and reclaim that we already have on the cra side and cra staff was already going to oversee and manage that program using city funds to make sure all the residents across the city were addressed with the same type of program you're talking about for seniors uh with needs uh fascia and resurfacing of their homes disabled veterans those those who have

served a time in our society. Correct. Chair? It may be on fixed income now.

So I think we need to just finish those comments. We need to make sure that those monies are directly budgeted for a housing department, and we use those funds, and they can be replenished from MHOP, because we've been waiting on MHOP to possibly pay into it. But now that MHOP is now an ordinance that will be on second reading, we'll have more money coming in, but we need to allocate money for the housing department now.

We would need to put that in an ordinance, I think, in order to effectuate that. Vice Chair Spiritus and then Council Member Lanier.

Mayor, I do believe that the CRA did receive funding from the state. The state had a program. It was for everyone in the state to fix their roof. and some other critical structural things on their homes. And I believe the CRA was a recipient of those funds. And they did leverage that, I think, with some of their own money. That's a very worthy program. If we want this to become a self-sufficient program for the future, you might want to consider making it a very low interest loan for some people and a grant for others, depending upon THE FINANCIAL SITUATION, BUT IF WE MAKE IT A LOW INTEREST LOAN, WE'LL BE GETTING BACK THE PRINCIPAL PRETTY MUCH WITH A SMALL INTEREST AND IT WILL JUST KEEP BUILDING ON ITSELF.

NEW SPEAKER GOOD IDEA. THANKS. VICE, COUNCILWOMAN LYNN AIR.

NEW SPEAKER YEAH, I WANTED TO LOOK AT THOSE COMMUNITY GRANTS AND THE EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANCE TO ZERO. THAT'S CRAZY. These programs were just started.

Wait, wait, wait. Did you understand that there's going to be a carryover in those areas?

I understand that. But the thing about it is that to have them to zero when we could use that the first quarter of the fiscal year because the programs just started, meaning that we just started funding these programs this year. which means that we had to get up to speed with procurement, with SOPs, with boards, with people actually putting out these grants. That is a whole machine going. And to have that going, we had to have time to do that. But to just say that we're only going to spend that amount because we're going to carry that over is not, that's ludicrous. We can't, no. We have to fund this the way it was the previous year.

And where do we cut to fund it? When we add somewhere, we have to cut somewhere.

Well, we can go to special events. We can go to professional services. We can go to promotional activities. But the community grants and the educational grants need to stand.

Now, how much is being carried over at each?

So the community grants are carrying over $60,000. And again, the educational assistance is going to carry over about $250,000.

So educational, it's going to be more than what it was allocated last year. Is that how I'm understanding that, Mr. Sherman? You said the education is going to be $250,000. $250,000. And it was allocated $200,000 last year?

We've done $200,000 for the last two years. So out of that $400,000, we'll have $250,000 left.

OKAY. SO I THINK THAT ONE IS ON POINT FOR WHAT IT'S BEEN. IT'S GOING TO BE 250. OKAY. WE'LL VOTE ON IT.

OKAY. AND HOW ABOUT THE COMMUNITY GRANTS? BECAUSE THOSE ARE JUST PICKING UP.

OUT OF THE HUNDRED, IT'S GOING TO BE 60 THERE.

THEY NEED TO COME UP TO 40 AT LEAST. THEY NEED TO BE FUNDED THE WAY THAT IT WAS ORIGINALLY.

I think I can probably work with the... Just the destined area to reduce the $40,000.

We can go to the $40,000 for that. Because if they spent $60,000 and they got $40,000 left, then they need to come up to the $100,000. And we can keep the... I guess we can look at with the $200,000 for the educational, but that grants that means that you're only going to have 40 for the whole fiscal year.

What are you saying? That's going to be 250 in the educational. Are you suggesting taking 40 away from that and making, what are you suggesting?

No, I'm suggesting either from special events or from promotional.

No, no. Chair.

Yes. So this is where an intergovernmental affairs person comes into play, there is a tremendous amount of money out there for community grant type programs in the state and in the federal government and private, by the way. So I think that we'll be able to make up that $40,000 if we hire a competent intergovernmental affairs person.

I mean, I understand that there may be grants out there and there probably are. I know that there are. Grants are hit or miss, that's for sure. This is monies that have been going out to educational schools, educational programs, same things for the community grants for our nonprofits in the city. So they at least need to stay where they are. Because for the educational assistant, is this only for the educational committee, or are you looking at pulling tuition reimbursement out of this? Mr. Sherman.

The tuition, you mean for the students? The tuition reimbursement is a different line.

That's a different, okay. It is. All right.

Okay.

All right, very good.

I'll point out what you don't see here are all the other things that are the same as they were last year. So we have the, um, the, um, riviera beach university that we do the citizens academy that we do pal uh all of those items that were originally you know being tinkered with by you know city manager are all back in the budget so these are just the ones that uh still took some what about the um the youth

Councilwoman Miller-Anderson, what's your organization called?

Yeah, the Youth Council funds are in the budget, yes.

Okay, all righty.

All right, this is the last slide on this item, and then we can possibly take more comments or public comments. Again, these are the staffing changes. You'll see that there really aren't as many as we have probably had in the past. On the left-hand side, there's a list of additional positions that have been added. If departments want an additional...

Wait, wait, wait, slow down. The city administration, I've seen in the governmental affairs, Where is the economic development position?

Again, that's already in the budget. So it's not coming in as an ad. These are added. These are all ads, right?

All right.

So you see the ads on the left side. I know it may look like a human resource has quite a few. But if you go to the other side of the ledger, they're swapping three positions for three positions to realign their service needs. So again, on the left-hand side, you've got the ads, you've got the conversions that finance is doing, some part-time positions. We have a position that all it's doing is moving from information technology to the police department. On the left-hand side, as we mentioned, again, to get to some of the 2% numbers, Some of the departments did give up some positions. Fire Department is giving up the nine positions that we put in the 2026 budget so we could do the new shift alignment that we are no longer moving forward with. So those nine positions could come back out. The police department, as you see, especially down at the bottom, they are freezing six vacant positions, and then they're freezing three other positions for half a year. That's to help pay for that $1.9 million of that PBA contract.

Chair? I said six months, I see three months there for freezing those positions.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did I say six? I'm sorry. Three.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

Thank you. So, Chair, if you want to go to public comments or unless the board has more comments. I have a question.

Yes. Councilwoman Lanier, then we'll go to public comments.

Okay. Yeah. I have a question in regards to, I never did get to hear the presentation from the city administration, from the internal auditor. from all of that. We didn't even hear that. But with that being said, I wanted to make sure that there was, I don't know if there's money in the budget. I'm looking at it now for the internal auditor's position. That department needs to have a person that is involved, an additional person in that department. I say this because there is a OIG report that's going to come out. AND THEY COME OUT EVERY YEAR. IT'S NOTHING THAT'S DIFFERENT. THEY COME OUT EVERY YEAR. BUT WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT WHATEVER ISSUES THAT THE CITY HAS ARE MAINTAINED IN-HOUSE, MEANING THAT THE INTERNAL AUDITOR'S POSITION IS TO ENSURE THAT ALL OF THE ISSUES THAT THE CITY IS HAVING IS looked at before it goes out. So I definitely want to look at, thank you, the internal auditor's office. This stops the OIG reports. This stops the outside whatever, because everything that is happening in the city stays in the city and is addressed in the city before it goes anywhere. And that is the purpose of an internal auditor.

And another purpose is to be independent from the city.

Exactly.

And the way it is situated, not reporting to the city manager is totally inappropriate.

We can look at, this is what we talked about this in the audit committee. We talked about the fact that there needs to be an arms list with the internal auditor and actually need to be off-site. in dealing with the city. There should be no political influence. There should be no staff influence. That person should be totally independent to look at the city's business and make recommendations to this council. And I wholeheartedly agree with it being separate from the city manager's office. They need to be independent.

We're going to have to go to a referendum. And I do think that it's time to review the charter again. It hasn't been reviewed in five, six, seven years. That is a living document. And when people know when I said living, it requires changes as we identify issues that need to be addressed. Sometime soon, I want to talk about establishing a charter committee that can make some recommended changes to the charter and at some point, it'll go back out to the people to vote on. Chair. Yes.

I'm sorry. I just wanted to say that because the internal auditor reports to the CITY MANAGER BY WAY OF THE CHARTER, YOU DEFINITELY HAVE TO START A CHARTER REVIEW COMMITTEE BECAUSE NOT JUST THAT POSITION, BUT THERE'S A LOT OF THINGS IN THAT CHARTER THAT WAS PUT IN THE 80s AND NEED TO BE REVISITED. SO I WOULD SAY SOON RATHER THAN LATER HAVING A CHARTER REVIEW COMMITTEE TO LOOK AT THE CHARTER AS A WHOLE. NEW SPEAKER I'M WITH YOU.

NEW SPEAKER I AGREE WITH MY COLLEAGUE ABOUT THE INTERNAL ORDER. very important that that person be independent it's also very important that that person meet all the requirements to be hired and it's also very important that that person not share information with members of our committees and boards and the community because things are coming back to me that i haven't even heard yet so i think we have to tighten up on that and hopefully the city manager RIGHT NOW CAN WORK ON THAT? THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S TIED TO THE CITY MANAGER. IT'S NOT COMING FROM THE CITY MANAGER. IT'S COMING DIRECTLY FROM THE INTERNAL ORDERING.

I HAVE TO DISAGREE WITH THAT.

GO AHEAD. YOU'RE INTENTILE TO YOUR OPINION, COUNCILMAN.

THAT'S TOTALLY NOT TRUE AND ALSO TO THE PERSON WHO THE INTERNAL AUDITOR HAS THE QUALIFICATION TO BE THE INTERNAL AUDITOR. THEY HAVE A CPA AND THEY HAVE THEIR CURRENT LICENSE. There is no issue with her not having what she's supposed to have in that position. I agree that it should be independent of the city. I agree that that person should be reporting directly to this board.

Chair?

I strongly disagree with my colleague. I have information that she does not have, obviously. And I can tell you that... I didn't say that this person does not have the qualifications. I said, whoever we hire and keep in this position should have those qualifications. So I'm just going to go through those qualifications and I will do a comparison. I haven't had the time to do that yet because this internal auditor was hired one, two, three, and we will do that. Thank you.

Right. And let me say this, Chair. I think that because the internal auditor is discovering things in the city that some people don't like, then they want to attack her. Chairman, let me finish. Let me be clear about this. And the purpose of the internal auditor's position is to report to the board about what is happening in the city. And guess what? The residents have a right to know as well. So guess what? Even though that's the case, There's nothing in this city is not to be shared. There's nothing in this city that's not supposed to be in the sunshine. There's nothing happening in this city that residents don't supposed to know about. So don't say that, oh, she's saying this about, it is a report that she finished and it should be shared with the public.

Mr. Chair, I'm his next speaker. Vice Chair Spiritus and then Mayor Lawson, and we've got to move on.

I think my colleague should study.

Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Please let the record reflect that Councilperson Davis-Panier is present.

Okay, thank you. I just think the members of the council should become familiar with what the rules and regulations in the law are pertaining to an internal order and a state investigation. and what information is allowed to be discussed and shared with the community and what is not. Clearly, that's not the case of what's going on right now. And we'll look into it. Thank you.

Mayor Lawson, and then we move it on with our budget. Thank you.

And to that point, we shouldn't be discussing qualifications, whether they are or not for an employee. This is not our employee. And if the charter or the law states they should report to us, we can make that determination. But to just discuss whether they are or not qualified, they were not hired by us. And if state law does require us to make that hire and they report directly to us or an outside agency will do that. I don't think this is the proper audience or the proper environment for us to discuss the qualifications of our auditor. So what we'll do as a board is just direct staff. Do we want to proceed with hiring a different order from this board? Do we want to have that discussion? But let's just be appropriate with our comments, especially when it comes to an active employee.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

I heard Councilwoman Miller, Anderson, then vice chair Spiridon, and we're going to cut this conversation off.

Are we not are we going to hear from the department? Individually?

No.

Why not?

Because we've already heard.

Huh?

We've already heard from each of the departments.

No, we still had some that we had not.

Put a motion on the floor and let's vote on it.

I have a floor, so...

I'm sorry.

I said I had the floor.

I know. I'm just saying we can settle it for the motion on the floor. And that's fine.

I know you got your two. But the thing is, I know we talked about it before. And that's how we came to the conclusion of having this additional having this meeting and the other meeting, because we said that we would continue with what did not take place. So I'm just trying to figure out when did things change where we said we were not going to hear the rest of the department give their presentations. Like they always do. I mean, I don't know what, did something change?

If you have any questions for any department.

Well, I would like to if I could see their presentation.

Okay. Chair? It was Vice Chair Spurdy.

Okay. And all due respect to the mayor, we vote on funding every one of these employees, and we have a fiduciary responsibility to know what their jobs are, what their qualifications are, and what the responsibility of that position is. Thank you.

Okay, we're moving on unless there's a motion on the floor to do anything different.

Yes, Chair.

Okay, make your motion.

I'm trying to understand why do I need to make a motion for something that is always a part of the presentation? When was it determined we were not?

I'll tell you why. Some of us have said that we've heard the presentations. We were here. I'm not prepared to go back through all of that again. I'm just saying put a motion on the floor. My mind is not going to change. Just put a motion on the floor.

Chair, can I just talk about this point? The city attorney, the city manager, the legislative group, we had the same conversation about a week or so ago where it was on the agenda for them to present, but then it was, oh, it wasn't, it was a mistake. It shouldn't have been written that way and all of this different stuff. And then I asked then, could we get them to, since we had time, could they go ahead and start doing it? I don't know, whoever didn't want to, I guess we had three that didn't want to do it. It didn't happen. Or it was that, oh, we have more days that we can, HAVE THIS MEETING. AND SO IT WAS UNDER MY UNDERSTANDING, THIS IS THE ADDITIONAL MEETING OR THE CONTINUING MEETING FOR THAT TO HAPPEN. SO AT WHAT POINT DID WE VOTE OR DECIDE THAT WE WERE NOT GOING TO HEAR THE REST OF THE DEPARTMENT?

AND I REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY ARE WE NOT WANTING TO HEAR FROM THE DEPARTMENT.

MR. CHAIR.

WE HAVE GENERAL ADMINISTRATION. WE HAVE YOUTH ENCOURAGEMENT. WE HAVE JUSTICE.

COUNCILMEMBER LENIER. I heard Mayor Lawson first and then on Councilwoman Lanier and then we're going to move on or somebody put a motion on the floor. We're not going to go back and forth about what we thought we were going to do and we're sitting here being a dead horse. I see you breathing over there, Ms. Attorney. Did you want to say something? Go ahead, Attorney Wood.

Ms. Miller-Anderson, I did present. And I thought the night that I presented, all the other departments presented as well. Mr. Coffin and I were just talking about it. And Ms. Jacobs, everyone presented.

And that was my point, Mr. Chair. I wasn't sure which departments Ms. Miller-Anderson was looking for. But if we could just identify whatever departments that we hadn't heard from, because I think the board heard from every department. But if there was something that was missing, of course, they can bring that back. There was a certain... Ms. Miller and Ms. Lanier just identified a few, but I believe Mr. Sherman did give a presentation on those departments that you just named. So we've heard from every department individually.

We didn't get the internal audit. We didn't get economic development.

Wait, wait. They fall under a department.

I didn't hear anything. That's why I'm talking about internal audit.

They fall under city administration. we have a presentation from city administration yes we heard divisions not no we're not going through every level of the city we'll be here for two weeks on every level of the city we should be hearing it we we got it from the city administration when the city administration gave their presentation look please put the motion on the floor we're about to move this is the I'm not sitting here to 2 o'clock this morning because somebody else did. They've done this. I'm not going back through this.

No, you're not correct.

Let's move on.

We can move on, but you are not correct in saying that we've done this because we did not. We did not do youth empowerment. We did not do the justice.

They fall under recreation. They fall under the departments that gave presentations.

They talked about me.

Jesus. What's up? Public comment, please.

Mr. Chair, there are no public comments on this item.

I'm sorry?

There are no public comments on this item.

Okay. Next item.

We've got to vote on this.

We've got to take a vote on this one, Mr. Chair. Not the first council person Davis in the air, yes, also personal in the air. Council person Miller Anderson now chair for 10 doctor spirit. Yes, chairperson guy to get the item passes with council person linear and Miller and the sentencing that chair to him.

We ask the question. Hurry up.

I think go ahead.

Okay. Oh, oh, oh. No, let me just ask a quick question.

I see you in your feelings.

I see you in your feelings. So the internal audit, the economic development, and the civil drug court, we heard that?

They fall under departments that we heard from.

But they didn't specifically talk about those particular...

Some of them they mentioned.

I don't remember that.

If you have any questions, you can ask them.

Chair.

Yes. Councilwoman Miller-Anderson.

We talked about the legislative budget. Did I miss that one?

Oh, yeah. Remember? Remember we talked about the promotional and y'all talking about taking it and I was like, no.

Taking what?

The promotional piece.

Remember the same. We left it the same. We took $1,000 off and we left it the same. $10,000. We did all of that.

Oh, yeah. That's right. We did.

So y'all agree to that?

Yeah. To remove $1,000 from us.

Oh, I see. All right. Very good.

Madam Clerk.

MR. CHAIR, EXCUSE ME, WE ARE ON ITEM 9C, ORDINANCE NUMBER 4326, AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF RIVERA BEACH, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA, MODIFYING AND UPDATING THE CITY'S FIVE-YEAR CAPITAL PROJECTS PLAN FOR FISCAL YEARS 2026, 2027 THROUGH 2030, 2031 providing for a severability clause, and providing for an effective date. Mr. Chair, we have one comment card on this item. The acceptance of the cards is closed.

I will entertain a motion to approve this item. So moved. It's been moved by Vice Chair Espiritis.

Second.

Seconded by Councilwoman Davis-Preneur. On discussion of this item, staff.

Okay, so this is again, we're talking about our five year CIP plan. And if you recall back when this was presented in August, pointed out to the fact that we really added no new projects. So this really is a true five year plan where last year, four years moved forward, we added on 2031. WHEN WE COME BACK ON THE 22ND, WE WILL MAKE SURE THAT IN PROGRESS NUMBER IS UPDATED. THIS IS REALLY THE SAME PRESENTATION THAT YOU SAW BACK IN AUGUST. AGAIN, NO CHANGE. THE ONLY ITEM THAT IS IN HERE FROM THE, WE'LL CALL IT THE $60 MILLION OF NEW MONEY, WOULD BE FOR THE POLICE STATION WHERE WE ADDED THE $22 MILLION OF POLICE STATION. But this plan does not include any of the additional $60 million. So if we decide to move forward with the $60 million, we would bring back a resolution to add those projects.

And that's including the pool over at the Callaway?

That would include the pool over at Callaway.

So that has to come back to us?

When we bring the resolution for the $60 million, We need to know what projects and when you add those projects, we will amend this plan.

Okay.

Okay. This CIP also includes the enterprise funds. So you do have your CIP for the utility district. Again, this is the same schedule that you saw a couple of weeks ago. Again, we rolled it forward. added new projects. The only thing that's on here obviously is second up from the bottom, that's the water treatment plant. That's the number that we have left to go, that $412 million. So again, there's nothing new in the CIP. THERE ARE TWO PAGES FOR EACH AND THEN I WOULD POINT OUT THE LAST PHASE FOR THE MARINA EXPANSION IS THE ONLY PROJECT THAT WE CURRENTLY HAVE IN THE CIP FOR THE MARINA. AND AGAIN, WE'RE HOPEFULLY NOW WE HAVE OUR MARINE COASTAL ENGINEERS ON BOARD AND WE CAN HOPEFULLY MOVE THAT PROJECT FORWARD. BUT OTHER THAN THAT, CHAIR, THERE'S NOTHING.

ON THE MOORING FIELD, DO WE HAVE A COST ESTIMATE ON WHAT IT'S GOING TO COST PER BALL?

WE DO. I'M TRYING TO FIGURE OUT. SO I'M GOING TO SAY WITH THE LATEST CHANGES THAT WE'RE MAKING.

Chair?

Yes.

What I'm asking, you know, in the mooring fields, we have those big concrete balls that float that they hook up and they're anchored to the ground by us and they just hook up to that ball. I just want to know what the cost is per ball so we figure out what size mooring field, if we want to do a mooring field, what size mooring field and what our cost would be to get it implemented. That's all. Awesome.

Thank you. at this point i'm going to say we're probably going to be around the million dollar mark put those in okay and how many but you what are you basing the million on how many so we're probably going to be if he if you put all of them in it's going to be roughly about 80 in the two fields um so we're looking at you know in that eight to ten thousand dollar range depending on you know, per, because we have to buy the moorings, we got to get the divers down, we got to do. And that may be too much. I'm hoping that's too much. But again, that puts us in that million dollar range.

But Mr. Sherman, you do know that the people do not want 80 slips there. So the council is going to have to work on that number based on what the community tells us when we hold that meeting. Come back with the actual drawings. Thank you.

okay um public comment card mary bram chair this is just for this item yes uh next i'm gonna go right into the general public comment okay

miss mary bram rivera beach i'm glad to see in the capital budget here where we have the water meter replace that because we constantly had residents concerning about their meters and i'm hoping that it will be in a conducive format to resolve some of these issues we know that we had the meters put in a couple of years back, but I still believe that it is some fault in those meters. I guarantee you that. I am glad to see that the citywide road construction, because we do have some bad roads here and we as residents want it done. You all better be awakened because that referendum is going to pass for that type there. we as a city here we need to cut i stood here and said here about your budget no i'm not going to exchange no words some of these employees need to go in the various departments they need to go they making big time money and not doing a darn thing but going around flashing their cans come on now come on now we're gonna be in a pickle here We got to make some serious, downhearted decisions. It is not where we like somebody or we love somebody. This is the good of this city. And it's time to move forward here. And stop playing these games here.

Yeah, I like each one of you all.

But all of us have our fault here, including some of the staff here. We need to go. They need to go. They shouldn't have never been hired in the first place. Not just myself, the community base knows it and everybody else knows it too. But that decision there, when the rubber meets the road here, because that referendum is going to pass here. It is going to pass. So you better get intact. And you better make some hardcore decisions. And all of this stuff, grant money, you keep giving grant money to the same darn people. We know that too. We looked at the files. Ms. Bram and others looked at the files. So I'm here to tell you all, this is going to stop one way or the other. It's going to cease here. You keep giving the grant money to the same people over and over and over and over again. What sense does that make? That's washing Peter DePaul hands. Friends and body masks. We know all about it. They know all about it, too. I'd be so glad. when all of these reports here are made against this city because they are coming yeah you see he's shaking his head he know exactly what i'm talking about because they are coming you're going to have to make some hard for your comments thank you we're not going to the general republic comment public comments shall begin at 7 30 unless there's no further business mr chair we need to take a vote on this item before we move on

We need to vote on the motion that was on the floor for the public comment. Okay. Madam Clerk.

Councilperson Davis-Panier? Yes. Councilperson Lanier? Oh. Councilperson Miller-Anderson? Yes. Chairperson Dr. Spiridon?

Yes.

Chairperson Guyton?

Yes.

The item passes with Councilperson Lanier dissenting.

Okay. We're going into the general public comment. portion of our meeting now. Public comments shall begin at 7.30 p.m. unless there is no further business of the City Council, which in that event, it shall begin sooner. In addition, if an item is being considered at 7.30 p.m., then comments from the public shall begin immediately after the item has been concluded. Please be reminded the City Council Board has adopted rules of decorum governing public conduct during official meetings. which has been posted at the front desk in an effort to preserve order. If any of the rules are not adhered to, the city council chairperson may have any disruptive speaker or attendee removed from the podium from the meeting and or the building, if necessary. Please govern yourselves accordingly. Madam Clerk, please call the first public comment speaker. How many public comment cards do we have?

Mr. Chair, we have four public comment cards. The first speaker is Linda Ruth Weber, followed by Doretta Polk, Dolores Williams, and Mary Brown.

Linda Ruth Weber.

One minute.

Good evening.

Good evening. My comment is about a personal comment that I have about the Reserve Beach Police Department. My car was stolen. And today I went over there to ask for an officer or officers to come to my house so that I can discuss with them, because when I went to the police station, they told me my car was in a crime scene location center and I couldn't find it. What the guy told me to do, they told me and someone was taking me to go down to Australia, turn on Australia and I would see a crime scene. I guess a building but saw no cars at a building. When you turn down Australian Avenue, There are businesses on both sides of the road. We went up into some of them were backstreet. Oh, and they also told me I would see police cars, saw no police cars, only saw businesses. I have lived here in the city of Riviera Beach. Maybe 73 years. I just turned 75 in July. OK. I HAVE WORKED IN THE CITY OF RIVERA BEACH. I WORKED FOR PALM BEACH COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM FOR 32 YEARS. I CAN HEAR, AND WHY I SAY THAT IS, WHAT THEY TOLD ME TO DO TODAY WHEN I WENT to look for my car. Something about a crime scene center. That is where my car is. My car has been gone since July. And I'm only emotional because I didn't sleep last night. I haven't been sleeping. And the other thing in relationship to my car, I grew up in a family. who demanded you take care of yourself. I've had to ask people, you take me to the grocery store? I walked the Publix three times because I didn't want to bother anybody. And I don't mean that. There are a couple of people, if Linda had asked them, Would they would I take if they would take me even to come over to the police station? I had to ask somebody last Thursday. I walked from the police station crossing track to my house in the rain.

OK, madam, we're going to get somebody to help you. Right now, there are two assistant chiefs in the back. Turn around and see those two guys right there raising their hand. Please go to them right now. ACM. Already had a discussion with them. They're waiting on it. Tomorrow, I want to know how they resolved it. Absolutely.

And I thank you, but we shouldn't have to come here.

I agree.

You have the city of Revere Beach Police, and I can tell you things that I know, and all I mean is where they're sitting up talking and drinking.

Thank you for your comment, ma'am. No problem. Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Next speaker, please. Excuse me, Miss Ruth. Excuse me, ma'am. Oh, you're going. Okay.

The next speaker is Doretta Park, followed by Dolores Williams and Mary Brim.

Good evening. My name is Doretta Park. And I just want to say my condolences to Mrs. Delores Dawson. And thank you, Councilwoman, for putting in on Facebook concerning her . She was such a very typical person of this city. She had concerned mothers in Southside Coalition where she fed the children and the family. SHE WILL DEFINITELY BE MISSED. AND I WANT TO SAY, WHEN WE HAD THE UTILITY MEETING, I WAS SO STUNNED BY THE REVELATIONS OF THESE UTILITY WORKERS, MR. BRINSON AND MR. BROWN. I HOPE THAT MR. KOVIT AND ALSO MR. DEDRICK JACOBS, YOU ALL LOOKING INTO THESE ALLEGATIONS, BECAUSE This was heartbreaking to hear what these people are going through. Heartbreaking, especially Mr. Brinson said that he wants to go ahead and learn more and get that opportunity. Now, in my career, whenever a nurse wanted to go and elevate herself, that was commended. And then also the CEO and CNO, they help these nurses. So I don't understand why they're not being elevated. You know what I mean? And what they're going through. Because what the situation I'm going through with Josh Neiman, this is not over at all. This is not over. And I will be speaking about that at the utility meeting. And I want to talk about this light at 20th Street. We have one on the east side, which we need that to come out, 20th and Broadway. Now there's another light on 20th and Broadway on the west side. I think State Park have been bringing those big boats out. and coming on 20th street because maybe they can't make the turn. I imagine you need to look into that because our street need to be repaved. It is terrible, terrible. So you please look into that, please, because I'll be back speaking on that also. And also now we into having another lawsuit. Council Chair Guyton. what was experienced here by me and also the people that listened at the meeting and people who were in here at the meeting. When you said to Councilwoman Kashama Miller-Anderson, I'm not the one.

Thank you for your comment.

Very rude. Thank you for your comment. I'll be back with that situation. Thank you very much.

Next speaker, please.

The next speaker is Dolores Williams, followed by Mary Brown.

I just want to say something about the war agreeing to everybody up there. This is something I feel that if you come here with a complaint and then different people get involved, just want to tell you that that one tell you that then that person to help you that somebody go tell them and they blocked that. I think it needs to be some investigation that when you come in, What a complaint. And it's a serious one. Please make sure that the people are notified and people know about it. And this is something I think, I don't know, maybe everybody know that. Like if you don't pay your water bill and it's all for a while, they charge you every month. a fee, something the board voted on. I think it's $86. They charge you that a month, whether you got water or not, they're going to charge you that. So maybe that need to be explained to the people better. Some of the rules and regulations here in this city, I just learned that after my niece came up here and was talking, and I think she understand it better, understand it better. But I think need to be some more clarification, some more understanding of the Bible and all by getting it, understand it. And I don't think that's fair. And just. I know to be saying by Josh, but that young man, I everybody have their own opinion about anybody. People have their opinion about me. I just need to see the difference in the water. I can get my phone and show you some time when the water was water, water, water, water was green, green, green, brown, everything. But there has been great improvement and he's trying his best. But when you put stumbling blocks, you better believe you don't hold there for that person. You don't fall first and you don't fall hard.

Thank you for your comment. Next public speaker.

Mr. Chair, the last speaker is Mary Brown.

This is Mary Brown with Air Beach. Every funding in that utility district that we have. We must utilize it to build that utility water plant. I don't care whether nobody get paid in here except for six people. That utility district is critical for this city. It's critical for the development. It's critical for anybody that wants to come in here and live like we are living now. So whatever funding is in that utility district, see, I put you on notice before because you wouldn't move it. So I had to get the higher office to really take a look into this city here. Move with that water plant. It is the survival of this city here. And I don't care what is going on. Our main focus is clean, safe water for the future, for now as well as the future. To hell with all of that other stuff. We're tired of it. We're tired of it. We need to move on to things that need to be moved. And Miss Bramley said, I just said here, I said it out west in the storm today. We need to move. And I'm encouraging you as leaders to do the same thing. Move. I'm sorry about Miss Dawson. Condolences goes to her and her family and her sister as well. Parking. Randy mentioned that the parking was in another category. But look at here. I want you all to give us our money back because you as a boy, voted on not charging us. And like Ms. Brown said, she was faithful. And I'm poor. Residents, I'm just like you. I always tell everybody I'm just like you. But I'm trying to help. I'm poor and I need my funding. So please, Bruce, you work on that, Bruce. Shake your head, Bruce.

Okay.

Work on that, Bruce. And some of this...

It will be addressed, Ms. Brown.

Thank you. Thank you. The salary increases, I was looking and I was observing the budgets and stuff. You will have the salary increases for the general employees, but that is at 6%. I ask you as leaders to govern that wisely. be wisely be wisely in paying them if they don't work if they don't produce what they need to produce and look at here some of them do not even come to work we got all of that too and it's on film it's documented tag numbers and all of that some of them don't even come to work don't pay them i don't care if they salary or not you have a fiduciary responsibility to work and govern this city here to the best of your ability. And any employer that cannot do that, leave this place here. Because we as residents, we are tired. We are in some budget crunching moments here. Thank you. Get my money through.

Thank you. That was the last speaker.

Yes, sir. That was the last public speaker.

On a serious note, we do need to address how we're going to deal with those who paid up front. I know that could be a yeoman's task. We cannot just do it for one person. We need to develop a process by which to address that. And then whatever we vote on, that's what it's going to be.

Mr. Chair?

Yes.

I did want to make a comment about the speaker. If the board could entertain me for just one moment. If I could have Director Neiman come to the front, please. There were comments made at previous meetings by staff, employees came to this microphone and concerns. And I believe there was a concern with a specific employee. Director Neiman, the employee stated that they weren't given an opportunity. In March of this year, was there an email sent out to offer an opportunity for the employee that spoke in the microphone?

Yes, sir, there was.

And was that an acting role to help with assisting with training and elevation of that employee?

Yes, there was for two employees that are currently employed with utility.

And they're currently employed. So residents, when we hear certain narratives or people come to the microphone, let's get the entire story before we put or chastise a director, an employee, or anybody within this community. This is also a message for all of our employees. This is an organization where we're trying to be as transparent and honest as possible. So I need my employees not to come to the mic to have discussions and issues that cannot be resolved with their staff. or handled within administration. As I say in every agenda review, let's keep the business of the city underneath the wraps to get the business done. We wanna be as transparent and open and honest. And if the employees feel like there is not a environment where they can go to their director, their HR, or their city manager, and they have to come to the board to come embarrass or to give the information, make sure it is accurate information with all information provided. Every employee, this city needs to move forward as an organization with the respect and decorum. And if we create this narrative in the public perception that eliminates the trust within the city of Riviera Beach, there would not be a trust in our community. So let's be very clear and transparent with what we're reporting on, what we're discussing, and what we're publicly displaying, because as my director just said, there was an opportunity offered, and because of the process through either HR, administration, staff, it wasn't completed. We're not going to fault anyone, but this employee was not EITHER NOTIFIED, AWARE OR EVEN ADVISED OF THIS AND THAT NEEDS TO DO A BETTER JOB WITH ALL OF OUR DEPARTMENT HEADS, CITY MANAGERS AND STAFF COMMUNICATING WITH DEPARTMENTS. SO THANK YOU FOR THAT, DIRECTOR NEMAN AND FOR THE OPPORTUNITIES OF CONTINUING TO ELEVATE PEOPLE FROM POSITIONS WITHIN. LET'S KEEP DOING THAT. i need to make sure we're hiring from within we're giving the employees in the city these same opportunities because we had a lot of budget cuts so i want all the positions that we currently have to hopefully give the opportunities to the employees that are here properly training them and preparing them for elevation and let's keep building riviera beach but thank you i had to clarify the record for you um mr demon chair um yes thank you mayor for bringing this up i was going to bring it up at the ud meeting i already discussed this with

with the executive director. But since you brought this up, I'm going to ask you a real simple question. Did you recommend that those two employees be given the position and be put on a temporary basis?

YES, I WAS, I RECOMMENDED IT TO OUR HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT. OUR HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT ADVISED THAT I NEEDED TO PROVIDE A MEMO. THAT MEMO WAS WRITTEN AND I WAS ADVISED THAT IT HAD TO BE SIGNED OFF BY CITY ADMINISTRATION. WHEN I SENT IT TO CITY ADMINISTRATION, CITY ADMINISTRATION BASICALLY ADVISED THAT THIS IS AN HR RESPONSIBILITY AND IT WAS JUST PING PONG BETWEEN THE TWO DEPARTMENTS.

THANK YOU. YOU ANSWERED MY QUESTION. THANK YOU SO MUCH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. Thank you very much.

I just wanted to respond to that, that I don't believe anything that Mr. Newman is saying. He lied to this board when he said that the generator was 2024. The generator is actually 2004. The generator is not working. So there is some issues that is going on that we need to take care of in-house. But I don't believe what he says because I have been lied to before.

and i'll leave it at that okay and let me just say i wasn't going to say anything um you was about to say something yeah i just want to be cautious with the board because some of these internal issues are being handled with hr and other entities that are looking at all of these issues so um let me just say that i i support mr nieman fully if there was a mistake made um and i don't know it is i don't know what the year was But he had never said anything to me that wasn't true. And people have their own agenda of why they attack certain people. And I'm just saying from my perspective, if there was a problem and I know about it, you all would know about it. He's a good man and he's doing the best he can do under circumstances that he has. You can have a seat, Mr. Neiman. Thank you.

And, Chair, I just want to say that, you know, being a good man and being a good person has nothing to do with business. I'm just talking about business, period. That's all I'm talking about.

You're talking about yours. Okay. I'm sorry. Finish your point.

Nothing personal.

Okay. You spoke your experiences. I'm speaking my experiences. My experiences are good.

my and the utility department is doing a lot better under mr neiman since he's been here right chair i believe he's doing a lot better because of the employees who are there chair but we will get off of that yeah we'll get on for that yeah i just i just want to follow up what you said i just want to make it very clear that mr neiman has done an excellent job uh we now have clean safe water coming through our pipes we've upgraded our existing water plant our new water plant is well under construction right now you can drive by you'll see all the work going on there my hat is off to the board and my hat is off to the utility district executive director assistant director and their staff thank you for all the work you do for this city and uh You really, I remember back, I think Ms. Brown brought up clean, safe water now. Those were my billboards when I ran for office six years ago. Thank you. Thank you.

Next item. We have 12C under discussion.

Under item 12, discussion and deliberation, we have city owner's rep through you to Mr. Chair, to our chair pro tem, Dr. Spiritus. THE ITEM CAN BE DISCUSSED AS LONG AS IT IS GERMANE TO WHAT WAS ADVERTISED FOR THIS MEETING, WHICH IS OUR BUDGET.

AS LONG AS YOU MAKE IT GERMANE TO THE BUDGET.

OKAY. WELL, IT WILL BE GERMANE TO THE BUDGET. CAN WE HAVE MS. AYMANS COME TO THE MIC, PLEASE? Good evening, Director Ammons.

Good evening, Dr. Perry.

Thank you. You know I respect you and I think you're doing a great job. I'm just bringing this up just so that we can have a discussion about it and maybe moving in a different direction, maybe stay in the same direction. I'm not sure yet. Yes, sir. We did have a discussion about owner's reps before this council, and it was my understanding that we were, well, you advised us that the list that we had who are owner's reps. And just so everyone knows, an owner's rep is usually an engineer or an engineering company that we hire to make sure they were getting what we paid for based on the contract that we executed. So now we went through this list and we saw that the list was very old. It was actually ancient. and you said i believed you said that you were going to put this out and get us new owners reps now what i've seen is that you're asking for an owner's rep for specific projects you're putting out rfps wouldn't it be better for us from a financial standpoint of course uh if we because clearly this this impacts our our budget big time well you know we're paying a million dollars for an owner's rep on station 86. we paid 500 000 for 87 and 88, 500,000 for each one. How much are we paying for the police station for an owner's rep?

I don't have that dollar amount at the top of my head. We approved that particular owner's rep representative over a year ago. I just don't have it at the top of my head. I apologize.

But we're talking about millions of dollars right now. So this does have an impact on our budget and how we're going to function. I just think that we'd be better off putting together a list of experienced engineering firms, and I think that we should tighten up our RFP and RFQ requirements for this. It should be an engineering firm. It should not just be a construction manager. You know, when you're talking about building a $45 million, you know, firehouse or a $400 million water plant, you know, it's important that you have engineers doing that, not just the construction manager. Construction managers do different things. And I think it's important that we have an engineering firm in there. I mean, they can have a construction manager working with the engineering firm as part of their staff, but I think we should do this. And I think we have to get rid of this old list that we have that's ancient. And we're recycling people that should not be even considered to be an owner's rent. So I think that we have to move quickly on this council and get this upgraded to experience qualified people to represent our interest and the city's interest, which should be the same.

I've got a question. When we prepare a rotating list of owner's reps, how long does that list last?

So when I started two years ago, the owner's rep list, I mean, was solicited, and it was a three-year contract with two options to renew. And at that particular time, you all had several projects that you all had in a capital budget, and so that would need an owner's rep. That list expired last year in March or April. And so the award of those of the owner's rep for those last two current projects came out of that previous solicitation before it expired. And so now it's time for a new one. So I took a look at all of the upcoming projects. And the city side only had one large project, which was the city hall. So before we had a pool and when a project came up, you could select from that particular pool. But when we knew we needed one for city hall, that's why we put out our owner's rep specific for city hall versus just a pool to address some of the things that you brought up. Meaning if it's a city hall project, which is a major development project, we want to owner's rep, for that particular project. I sent an email earlier today to my colleague to determine if there are some projects that we missed that may need an owner's rep.

So my question is, the rotation of the list only lasts so long and then you go back out to develop another list.

We can go back out to develop a list, or we can go back out and ask for one that's project specific. And that's what we did. We only had one major one, so we didn't want to develop a pool for one project.

Understood. Chair? Yes. Vice Chair Spiridon.

So to build on your comments and direct names, we're going to have a lot of projects. city projects that are coming out. I mean, I noticed you said, of course, you made it clear that the UD district's projects weren't included. The UD district has about five or six projects, major projects, that are going to be coming out of the ground real soon, if not already coming out of the ground. But then the city has, of course, the Marina project. And we have other projects. Do we have an owner's rep on the related project?

If, and correct me if I'm wrong, I believe the related project is a lease project. And so because we sell, the question is, do we need an owner's rep? Because, you know, it's weird. Is that a project that the CRA will want an owner's rep when it is not, it's just structured as a P3 contract?

Right, Chair. So just, you know, we have a substantial amount of money invested in that project as well. and we want to make sure that our money is being used in the right way and we're getting our money's worth out of it. It's important that we have an owner's rep. You do know that that lease expires and then the project becomes owned by the city. It clearly is not going to be me sitting here when that happens, but someone's going to be sitting here. We have to look out for the future generations. So I think it's important that we have an owner's rep on projects, even when we lease them, as long as we have a financial interest in that project, it's important that we make sure that we're getting what we agreed to contractually.

I think we can put the discussion on another meeting, the owner's rep process. We can have a discussion of how we want to do it and give you all time and us time to think about how we feel would be the best process. And we can even have discussions in the interim with staff. and then come in to here with the discussion. Did you have a comment? No, that was me. Ms. Attorney?

I did as well.

Go ahead with your comment.

My suggestion would just be that if you're talking CRA issues, you do those at CRA meetings and not at city council meetings.

Understood. But the issue with the owner's rep in general.

And I wanted to make sure that the procurement director sent all of us a copy of our current owner's reps. A COPY OF OUR CURRENT PROJECT THAT DON'T HAVE A OWNER'S REP AND ALSO THE PROCESS AND THE POLICY THAT WE USE TO GET TO THIS POINT WITH OWNER'S REP.

OKAY. AND WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A DISCUSSION ABOUT THAT.

CHAIR, CAN WE PUT THIS ON THE NEXT CITY COUNCIL?

I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT.

CAN WE TAKE A VOTE ON WHETHER OR NOT WE'RE CONSISTENT ON GIVING THIS DIRECTION?

WITH THIS SPECIAL MEETING, WE CAN TAKE A VOTE IF YOU LIKE.

Yeah.

Make sure you all agree. It's a consensus. Next meeting. OK. Thank you. OK. ACM closing comments. Please talk into your mic.

One of them was dealing with the boats on Broadway, 20th and Broadway. I know there was some conversation I want to say last year about Broadway being widened. THE MAYOR BROUGHT UP LOOKING INTO CROSS PROGRAMMING WITH OTHER CITIES.

STAFF WILL TAKE A ‑‑ YOU SAID BROADWAY BEING WHAT?

I THINK THERE WAS SOME DISCUSSION. ONE OF THE COMMENTS THAT ONE OF THE CITIZENS BROUGHT UP WAS BROADWAY BEING TOO NARROW FOR BOATS TO TURN. I THINK ABOUT A YEAR AGO THERE WAS SOME DISCUSSION IN COUNCIL ABOUT VIKING WIDENING BROADWAY. SO I KNOW THAT'S A PROJECT THAT'S ONGOING. I don't know where it is, but I'll look into that and find out what the status is.

If I could just add on that, that's the people in Lakeview Park had that discussion that what was happening is one of the boat operators, commercial boat operators, was bringing their boat down a residential street rather than using the street that was really set up for the larger boats. And it was causing all kinds of havoc in their neighborhood. So I know that it's being looked at by the city engineer and city staff.

OK, ACM, anything else?

That is it, Mr. Chairman.

OK, Madam Attorney.

No comment, Mr.

Chair. Councilwoman Miller-Anderson. No comment. Councilwoman Lanier.

Our Education Committee meeting is this Thursday, 6 o'clock, Brookstead.

OK, Vice Chair Spiritus.

Chair, I would just like to bring up that we should look at in the future oversight of our projects that where we give money to other agencies, whether it be CDC, housing authority, what oversight does the city have? And that might be with the owner's rep discussion at the next meeting to make sure that we continue to have oversight to make sure that we are getting what we put our money into. Okay.

And our next regularly scheduled meeting has been moved from the 16th to the 20th.

22nd, September 22nd.

Yeah, I mean, 22nd. So that would be considered our next meeting there. Councilwoman on David's premiere.

I just want to apologize for being late. I had to go to my job for this evening, but I do have a question. I do have a question. Where did we end up with the internal auditor? Is that going to be coming back up or what? What would you say? And I want to walk in at the end.

Oh, that was a discussion whether they were going to give a presentation or not. And that's when we had the discussion that they fell under the city's managers. I mean, the city administration's presentation.

OK, I know when I got here, it was more disgusting than whole position. So I'm saying that.

Oh, yeah. Not in public. There was some we we did have a discussion about revisiting our charter that said that position REPORTS TO THE CITY MANAGER.

SO WHO IS REVISITING AND WHEN WILL WE GET INFORMATION ON IT?

NO, WE'RE GOING TO DISCUSS ESTABLISHING A CHARTER REVIEW COMMITTEE BECAUSE IT'S IN THE CHARTER WHO SHE REPORTS OR WHO THAT POSITION REPORTS TO. AND THAT IS HOW WE'RE GOING TO ADDRESS IT THROUGH A CHARTER INITIATIVE. OKAY, THANK YOU. MAYOR LAWSON, YES.

I'LL TAKE THAT INITIATIVE. I WAS ON THE ORIGINAL CHARTERS REVIEW COMMITTEE ABOUT 10 YEARS AGO.

SO WHAT YOU MEAN?

I mean, I can spearhead it. I mean, I can't. I don't have to be honest. No, no, no. I don't have to be honest. None of us. Well, then when are we going to get information from the staff about this?

Well, that's what I was asking.

So anybody have a time?

No, it was just brought up tonight. It was.

Okay, well, I want to go a little deeper into it. So that's why I'm asking. I heard you all saying that it's not appropriate to do it here. So I want to make sure that it is addressed. Yeah. We.

Staff. we need to address establishing a charter review committee and the processes associated there too that's the first step yes sir i was just advised we could probably get with the clerk and go back and see how the first one was established and then we'll move forward and then we can decide if we want to follow the same process or alter it or or as long as we stay within the parameters of the law

And you should probably put it on your agenda to make sure that there's a vote on moving forward with that.

Okay. That's another item to put on our next agenda on the 22nd. Mayor Loftus. Thank you.

Just want to announce that we have the Healthy Lives, Healthy Wallets initiative. It's been launched. It's on the city website under the mayor's page. That is from the grant that Mr. Range wrote. And that'll be a initiative to help with families, low income, moderate income families, in our community. So you can go online, register for the actual program. There's 35 families that we will be accepting. The program will start October 1, but we are marketing and advertising it now. So please go online and register for Healthier Lives, Healthy Wallets.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mayor. I have no comment. Meeting adjourned.